Let’s consider ourselves fortunate that Canada’s Somali settlers—the word “immigrant” is so 20th century—seem more or less content with killing each other.

On the last day of July, the Edmonton Journal devoted not two, not three, but seven articles to the latest spate of intra-Somali murders in Alberta’s capital.

(Nicknamed “Deadmonton,” that city leads Canada in homicides this year, with 29 so far—four of those victims being Somali “youths.”)

The Edmonton Journal depicts a community of approximately 10,000 self-effacing newcomers scratching out modest livings and shaken by the statistically significant number of dead sons they’ve been obliged to bury.

Amazingly, the Somalis they interviewed didn’t use “victimhood” jargon when discussing the murders. Only a Somali-born “youth worker” raised the specter of racial “discrimination.”

Instead, these engineers-turned-cabdrivers explained, without discernible self-pity, that the young men who’d been killed had traveled across Canada to cash in on Alberta’s abundant oil wealth. Unable to find work upon arrival and separated from their families, they succumbed to the lure of easy money by selling drugs and running guns. Some paid with their lives.

“No offense, guys, but we’d rather you stuck with murdering your own kind—and doing it somewhere else.”

Discussing the murders elsewhere, Ahmed Hussen of the Canadian Somali Congress also sounded so unlike the typical “professional ethnic” that his interviewer seemed taken aback.

Hussen stated, “We haven’t sat around waiting for the government and the police to solve this. We have taken complete ownership of this issue.”

Among other things, such as a “youth help line,” the locals launched a poster campaign encouraging residents to cooperate with police. (Somalis brought their distrust of armed, uniformed authorities with them from their homeland, which helps explain why only three of those 18 murders have been solved.)

But speaking of cultural “baggage,” some of it might have gotten lost on the trip to the printing press.

Khat, or gat, is a shrub that grows in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Legend has it that Bushmen chewed khat to stay awake during long hunting expeditions. Its effect is said to be comparable to either coffee or cocaine, depending on whom you ask: a three-or-so-hour “high” characterized by increased energy, reduced inhibition, and, notably, talkativeness.

Even though the Journal’s series coincided with the “controversial” publication of “wanted posters” for war criminals illegally residing in Canada, their reporters didn’t mention that four of the 30 facing deportation are Somalis—along with Afghanistan, the highest number from a single country. That would have made for an enlightening “conversation” at that Edmonton “cafe,” since we’re informed elsewhere that “for many in the Somali community, the distinction between right and wrong is not as clear-cut as government officials would hope.”

Regardless, they still cost us money. The Alberta government has pledged $1.9 million dollars to fund “programming” to help Somalis “integrate into mainstream society.”

Of course, that’s a pittance compared to long-term “wear and tear” on the social infrastructure. Take the 98% of Somali females who are victims of genital mutilation, which causes a number of health problems requiring treatment. (Since hymen-replacement surgery is matter-of-factly performed on female Muslims in Canada, it would be naive to presume that FGM isn’t being carried out as well, albeit in “unofficial” settings.)

It’s true that not everyone sounds like they’re asking for a government handout, and that’s genuinely heartening.

“As a Somali community, we have to do something,” said Sheikh Osman Barre after presiding at yet another funeral. “We have to wake up. We can’t complain [to] someone else all the time. We have to do something.”